One-minute lecture: How can video games help the world?

There is more learning that happens in the playground than in the classroom. One of the ways that humans learn how to be human is by play, by having games together. We take on new identities, we explore the realms of possibility.

Children with computer games have the opportunities to be generals, to be space commanders, to take on new identities as scientists or mathematicians, to explore strange and wonderful new worlds. And do it together while playing computer games.

We should be thankful that they have these opportunities. It is a wonderful experience. And these opportunities allow children to create new communities and to try on the identities that they then go on to adopt later in life.
Some studies have shown that if you play a sports video game, you're much more likely to actually take up that sport. I myself did that with some of my own hobbies. First, I played the game on the computer where it's nice and safe and I can relax. And then I began to see myself as that person, as having that ability. And I became interested in it and went on to do it.

So games offer all of these opportunities. As to games being addictive, well, play is fun, and unfortunately, sometimes life is not as interesting as it could be. There's a beautiful comment from Prensky which is: "I think there are fewer learning disabled children out there than there are learning disabled environments."
If anything, we should be looking to computer games as a model for how we should be changing our education system. How we should be improving it. How we should be reaching out to these people, these children, and making their lives better.